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Exchanged Glory III: Wise as Serpents
… Boasting that you are wise isn't wisdom. Twisting the truth to make yourselves sound wise isn't wisdom. It's the furthest thing from wisdom — it's animal cunning, devilish conniving. James 3:14-15
When I gave up my love of simplicity, my sometimes humiliating weaknesses were exposed. I could no longer fall back to the emotionally safe excuse that life was too hard. I also couldn’t blame God for not coming through for me. My heart had to admit that I had mental, emotional, and sexual problems that continued to plague me. I wasn’t a tower of spiritual strength; I was a needy man who didn’t have answers for his own brokenness.
This kind of honesty was frightening. It was hard to keep taking the next step of faith when it was so painfully obvious that I wasn’t, in myself, up to the task. I knew that without Jesus’ supernatural intervention I would fail miserably. Part of me wanted to back away to an imaginary world in which I could feel more successful, but I needed to learn to be content with the success that God was giving me at each step in the journey.
Fortunately, I had spent the past two decades learning to depend on Jesus. I had many times fallen on my face and said in effect, “Lord, I’m clueless. I can’t handle my life unless You do something. Please help!” Experience had taught me that it wasn’t necessary to have all of the answers; it was enough to know the God who had them. My relationship with Jesus gave me faith and hope, and this kept me from losing heart under the weight of my limitations.
If I had refused to humble myself and look to Him, I would have been indulging in the second wisdom killer: a delight in scoffing.
… And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing …
(Proverbs 1:22, NAS)
A proud and haughty man — "Scoffer" is his name; he acts with arrogant pride.
We are scoffers when we hang onto pride rather than honestly admitting our weaknesses. We chase away our insecurities by convincing ourselves that we have the answers to life apart from God’s mercy. Rather than accepting His assessment of our need, we trust in ourselves. This is at the heart of scoffing, whether it expresses itself verbally or not. We feel we don’t need to embrace the self-denying process of Spirit empowered living, and our arrogance tunes our hearts away from God’s broadcast of wisdom.
There is a worldly shrewdness that masquerades as true wisdom.
Mean-spirited ambition isn't wisdom. Boasting that you are wise isn't wisdom. Twisting the truth to make yourselves sound wise isn't wisdom. It's the furthest thing from wisdom — it's animal cunning, devilish conniving … Real wisdom, God's wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced.
(James 3:14-15; 17, The Message)
A scoffer is a person who adopts this devilish imitation of wisdom. He finds his security in looking as if he knows what he is talking about rather than being the person God has called him to be. He scoffs at those who disagree with him. His life isn’t about finding and living God’s truth; it is about “proving” how competent he is.
When one of my daughters was in high school, I enjoyed hearing her describe the different groups of students. One was the “popular kids,” who many of the others didn’t like. I found that to be an amusing contradiction, but it makes sense when we consider how scoffers operate. They frighten others into forced respect.
He who corrects a scoffer gets shame for himself … Do not correct a scoffer, lest he hate you …
Scoffers use intimidation to keep others in line. Those who fear them will treat them as if they are popular, even while they secretly resent them. Many people may outwardly show honor, but they inwardly hope that the proud will be put in their place.
… the scoffer is an abomination to men.
A skilled scoffer can so dominate a situation that he will drive everyone into an agitated state. He will identify those who are a threat and use backbiting, confrontation, and gossip to undermine their influence. Contention and strife thrive when he is around.
Cast out the scoffer, and contention will leave; yes, strife and reproach will cease.
I once worked on a project that was headed by a scoffer. He constantly put down management, and he even drove away one of my co-workers because he appeared to be too “management-like.” After several months the scoffer was removed from his position. When he left, I was amazed at how the workplace suddenly became more pleasant, and everyone seemed helpful and cooperative. What had happened? My management had cast out the scoffer, and contention left. Strife and reproach ceased.
The answer to scoffing isn’t self-hatred, but humility. We have to see ourselves as God sees us. We are unconditionally loved – held in our Father’s loving arms – but we are also weak human beings who desperately need His help.
Even when we learn wisdom (or especially when we learn it), we need to cling to humility. Sin will always seek to turn our understanding into an excuse for earthly devilish pride. If we let that happen, God will resist us.
But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
We can tie this idea back to the OK Stronghold.[21] The lie of the devil is that we will be OK if we are good at something. The scoffer believes this deception, and marshals his personal forces to make sure he comes out on top, or at least looks like he does. He feels that acknowledging his failures makes him a failure and promoting his successes makes him a success. It is a total misunderstanding of life.
The answer to all of this is in the love of our Father God and the blood of His Son Jesus. They make us OK[22] even when we are losers in the eyes of men. Through His mercy, we can face our weaknesses and receive the grace to move into the wisdom from above. We aren’t trapped by an OK Stronghold that forces us to prove that we know what we are doing even when we don’t.
I know how easy it is for our hearts to be fooled. At times, I have felt so sure of myself that I couldn’t imagine I was wrong; yet the Bible disagreed with me. For example with sexual temptations, it seemed totally unreasonable for God to ask me to turn away from desires that felt entirely natural and wonderful. I had to humble myself and proceed on the assumption that He knew what He was talking about, trusting that in time He would convince me of the truth.
Many of us miss God because we have too much confidence in our own opinions. We feel right, so we assume we are right. In addition, we get upset when we have to deal with actually being wrong, so we don’t hold our sins up to the light. We may only be partial scoffers, because we don’t publicly spout our pride, but our thoughts and actions betray us. We are hanging onto a sense of accomplishment rather than facing facts that would force us to change for the better.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding …
A true sign that we trust in the Lord is that we will believe Him even when He disagrees with us. When He tells us we are wrong, we won’t lean on our own understanding. We will instead seek to see life as He does, accepting His assessment of our foolishness until we become wise.
Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. (emphasis added)
In this series of books, my foolishness has been on open display. You can imagine what it felt like for me to honestly face the ignorance in my heart. I had to admit that I was so out of touch with reality that I at one time cut myself with razor blades.[23] It took me decades to figure out how to handle my emotions, and I was hopelessly confused about sex. I didn’t understand God, people, myself, or the world.
It hurt to confess so much weakness, especially when I wanted to prove that I was a successful Christian. But I had to lay down my desire for honor so that I could hold up my foolishness to the only One who could fix it. By admitting who I was, I paved the way for Him to make me into the person He wanted me to be.
It was tempting to compare myself with others so that I could feel better. Scoffers give in to this temptation often. It eases their pain but blinds their eyes.
… But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.
In order to understand our true condition we have to use our Heavenly Father and His commandments as our standard.
Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
Seeing ourselves in His light takes away any justification for boasting. Our only hope is His mercy and grace.
Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God …Where is boasting then? It is excluded. (emphasis added)
(Romans 3:19; 27)
I coached a basketball team a number of years ago. On the first day of practice I started with a speech that went something like this:
“There are some skills that you must learn without making many mistakes, for example driving a car. You don’t want to crash fifty times while you figure out what you are doing.
There are other skills that you can only learn by making mistakes. Basketball is like that. If you refuse to try because you are afraid to look bad, you will never look good. You have to go out, make bad passes, bounce the ball off your foot, shoot shots that miss, and run to the wrong place. As you do, if you work hard and have a coach to show you how to improve, you will eventually figure out how to play this game.
We are here to look bad for long enough so that we can look good. I’m going to ask you to dribble the ball up and down the court hundreds of times, and I expect you to do it even if you feel awkward and clumsy. I’m going to make you practice skills with both hands, even though most of you will feel stupid with your left hand. It’s OK. You’re not supposed to do well at first. If you want to become a skillful basketball player, you have to first figure out how to learn while you are an unskillful one.”
I was trying to create an atmosphere that freed my players from the pride and intimidation associated with scoffing. Sports teams are often ruled by a spirit of competition and perfectionism that makes the players afraid to try anything except what they have already mastered. That might be acceptable on an older team that has winning a championship as its goal, but not on a team of young players who need to learn.
I was also trying to teach my players more than basketball. I wanted to give them an example of how to get past the insecurity that makes it hard to gain skill in all of life. I hoped to present humility as a key to growth.
I will close this chapter by showing how I apply these truths to developing godly sexuality. There are some lessons we don’t want to learn by making mistakes, for example the lesson that the act of adultery is damaging. Falling into adultery is like crashing a car. It causes such pain that it is wise to set up boundaries to keep ourselves from it. It is good to ask the Holy Spirit to lead us into whatever steps are necessary to make sure that these sins aren’t a part of our lives.
We can’t, however, set up barriers to keep us from every sin. The world we live in will always contain temptations, and God wants to give us the wisdom to handle them. We will fail at times, but if we are humble, He will transform us.
When we sin, we can ask God to help us to learn from our failures. What are we missing that would cause us to fall into thoughts and actions that are wrong? Why are we missing it? He loves to respond to those sorts of prayers, and the books of this series are a record of many of the insights He has given me in answer to my own cries for help along these lines.
We can’t wait until we are perfect before venturing out to love God, our families, and everyone else. We will never be perfect in this life, but our hearts can always be in the process of growing. We need to get out into the everyday fray of living, do our best, and learn from experience.
We don’t have to prove that we are OK; Jesus made us OK by His blood. We do have to admit our shortcomings and humbly seek His answers. Scoffers stay foolish because they are too proud to do this. Humility isn’t high on their list of virtues, which is a tragedy. From basketball to families to jobs to sexuality, humility is an essential part of growing in wisdom – but scoffers delight themselves in scoffing.
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